As our understanding of stress and its impact on health grows, a more significant number of people are diagnosed with acute stress disorder. However, what is an acute stress disorder? Also, how does it influence addiction? These two questions must be answered. Keep in mind that the answers may be a signal that you need to visit an acute stress disorder treatment center in Portland, Oregon.
What is Acute Stress Disorder?
An acute stress disorder is a reaction to a traumatic event that makes a person’s life more difficult. Symptoms of this disorder include:
Detached feelings of emotional numbness
These detached feelings revolve around circumstances that would normally provoke a strong emotion reaction for you. Now, however, you can no longer feel deeply moved by something when you know you should be.
Flashbacks to the traumatic event that triggers adverse emotions
For many, these can play on what seems like an endless loop in their heads. It’s trauma being relived, over and over again.
Distressing emotions when reminded of the event
For most people, these strong emotions begin to subside as the traumatic event becomes more of a distant memory. For someone with acute stress disorder, the emotions never decrease in intensity, no matter how long ago they occurred.
Avoidance of people, places, or situations
It doesn’t take long for such behavior to seriously affect your daily life.
Anxiety and depression without other outside influences
In so many ways, it’s easier to be able to pinpoint a cause of stress. When that doesn’t happen, the problem seems even more daunting.
Feelings of being tense or on guard for bad things
Expecting the worst, even when such feelings aren’t warranted.
Difficult time standing still or sitting in one place
A restlessness that can feel all-consuming and unavoidable.
ASD vs. PTSD
These emotions typically occur during the first three days to one month after the traumatic event. This period is the “acute” phase and is where emotions often run the strongest. People with an acute stress disorder may find their life is complicated to understand and struggle to feel connected to others. They may even develop some symptoms of PTSD, though researchers say that isn’t always the case.
And while ASD and PTSD both require exposure to a traumatic event, they are not quite the same. For example, PTSD includes symptoms that differ from pure fear, such as risky behaviors and placing blame for the incident. ASD focuses more on anxiety, depersonalization, and derealization. These concepts mean that a person with this disorder often struggles to feel connected to reality.
How Does Acute Stress Disorder Trigger Addiction?
Although acute stress disorder is not the same as a post-traumatic stress disorder, both may influence addictive behaviors. For example, the depersonalization that occurs with an acute stress disorder may trigger substance use. Some people with this disorder may believe that substances ground them or help snap them back to a reality that their stress had denied.
Unfortunately, you may easily fall into a pattern of behavior that rewards your drug addiction with higher emotional sensations. This situation is widespread and frightening for those with an acute stress disorder. In many cases, it may worsen their condition to the point where they developed PTSD and may become even more dependent on substances for help.
Therefore, anyone asking the question “what is an acute stress disorder, and how does it influence addiction?” need to consider professional help. Mental health disorders and addiction often work together to create a cycle of behaviors and emotions that are hard to escape. Thankfully, we can help you overcome these problems through the use of high-quality rehab.
Can Rehab Help Overcome This Problem?
Look to professional rehab when answering the question “what is an acute stress disorder, and how can it be treated?” The connection between stress disorders and substance use are too high for you to ignore in this situation. Thankfully, we can provide you with a variety of high-quality care options that can help you successfully work through your emotional and physical health problems.
For example, we can provide dual-diagnosis care that helps to manage your stress and your addiction. This care option treats acute stress and substance use as one coherent concern and will offer intensive psychological counseling, behavior adjustment, and more. In this way, you can recover not only from the stress in your life but your addiction as well.
Rehab can also help you learn more about problems such as triggers and other behaviors that cause you to abuse. We can teach you how to avoid stressors and cyclical behaviors that may seem impossible to avoid without help. In addiction, if your family is affected by your addiction, our family therapy sessions can help them get through this challenging process with you.
Let Us Help You Beat Your Acute Stress Disorder
If you need help answering the question “what is an acute stress disorder?” and getting through drug addiction, call 866.262.0531 to contact us at Crestview. We provide many care options that can help you overcome your addiction, such as outpatient and aftercare treatment. Our focus on dual-diagnosis and other care options will help you become a happier and healthier person.
Since 2016, Dr. Merle Williamson, a graduate of Oregon Health Sciences University, has been the Medical Director at Crestview Recovery, bringing a rich background in addiction medicine from his time at Hazelden Treatment Center. He oversees outpatient drug and alcohol treatments, providing medical care, setting policies, detox protocols, and quality assurance measures. Before specializing in addiction medicine, he spent 25 years in anesthesiology, serving as Chair of Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Chief of Anesthesia at Kaiser Permanente. This experience gives him a unique perspective on treating prescription drug addiction.
